


Where It Counts

by Mithrigil



Category: Fate/Zero
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, Horror, Magic Revealed, Worms, nice guys finish WORMS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 12:51:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kariya follows the Matou family rules, until he can't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where It Counts

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings do no account for Matou Zouken. Matou Zouken _is_ your warning.

**Three.**

Kariya is old enough to know the rules.

One: Grandfather knows best. Grandfather knows everything. Grandfather knows when you’ve done something wrong, even if you don’t. Do not disobey him.

Two: You belong where Grandfather says you belong. Even if the house is as big as the world, your place in it is very small. You belong in the front hall, and the dining room, and the bathroom, and your bedroom, and maybe if you’re good you can stay with Mama and Papa or Byakuya if the thunder gets too loud. Grandfather knows everything. Do not disobey him.

Three: Do not go where you don’t belong. You belong where Grandfather says you belong. Grandfather knows best. Do not disobey him.

Four: Nothing is scarier than Grandfather when you disobey him.

 

**Six.**

Takako invited everyone to her birthday party. Everyone: all twenty-eight of the kids in Kariya’s kindergarten class, and Nakagawa-sensei, and even Sumi and Shiro, the class hermit crabs, but Nakagawa-sensei says the hermit crabs couldn’t come because they didn’t have fancy enough clothes. Takako says that as long as she had to invite _everybody_ , they should have at least gotten an invitation.

She says it where Kariya can hear her, and pouts at him with a shriveled-up nose and her pigtails in a ribbony snit. Kariya goes and sulks in a corner by the cake.

Everyone else plays tag, or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, or with Takako and her new dolls. Kariya watches for a while, and then thinks maybe he’ll get up and go. He tugs on the tablecloth on the way up--

“Don’t tip the cake,” Aoi says.

Kariya thuds back down to the grass. “Um. Sorry.” His cheeks feel hot, so he hides them. “Is the cake okay?”

Aoi nods, or at least her shadow does. She’s wearing so many ribbons in her headband that her shadow looks funny. Funny but cute. He knows they’re magical and he’s not supposed to talk about it, but they’re still cute. “You didn’t tip it. Why aren’t you playing?”

“Takako didn’t want to invite me.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play.”

“I know, I just feel bad.”

“Why do you think she didn’t want to invite you?”

It’s stupid. Kariya almost says so. But Aoi doesn’t want him to call her friend stupid, so he doesn’t, and just tells the truth. “I didn’t invite her to my birthday. So she didn’t want to invite me to hers.”

“You didn’t invite me either.”

Kariya hangs his head. “I didn’t have one.”

Aoi laughs. Usually, Kariya feels really happy when Aoi laughs, but this time he just wants to sulk more. “That’s not your fault!” she says. “If you didn’t have one, you can’t invite anyone.”

“But I wanted one.” Kariya doesn’t mean to sniffle. “I wanted to have a party and invite everyone and I even asked Grandfather about it, and he said no. I said that the house was big enough and Mama could make dango and we’d play hide-and-seek and Grandfather said no.”

“Why?”

“He said the house is too old and everybody could get sick. And I said that if the house is so old that people can get sick why do we live in it, and he said it’s different if you’re part of the family. Because if you’re family you know where you are and aren’t allowed to go, and the old parts that make you sick are the parts you’re not allowed to go. And so I said that I’d tell everyone they just weren’t allowed to go places and he said no. No one’s allowed in the house at all. Just family. So I can’t have a birthday party. Ever. And people won’t want to invite me to theirs, like Takako.”

“Oh,” Aoi says. And she starts getting sniffly too. But Kariya doesn’t like it when Aoi cries ever and he gets to his feet and he doesn’t mean to tug on the tablecloth this time either, and it jostles the cake--

 

**Seven.**

Byakuya is better at hide-and-seek than Kariya is, even if he’s bigger. Kariya can hide in cupboards and drawers or under curtains but Byakuya always finds him, and when it’s Byakuya’s turn to hide he shouldn’t be able to fit into the small and dark places but Kariya never wins.

And he’s been looking for Byakuya for _half an hour_ already. But this is like training, and he shouldn’t give up just because it isn’t working. That only means he isn’t working hard enough.

So he looks everywhere, even some of the places he’s not allowed. He goes into the bathroom and knocks on all the panels in the tub. He goes into Byakuya’s room even if he doesn’t have permission and looks in the closet and under the bed and even under the mattress and all he finds are some manga with dirty pictures in them. He checks the special cabinet in the dining room and even if he doesn’t have the guts to move any of the china or the pretty eggs, he doesn’t find Byakuya in any of the big enough places. And he even knocks on the door to Grandfather’s tatami room--Grandfather isn’t there, but Kariya knows he shouldn’t go in if there’s no good reason, even if Byakuya might have already broken the rules to hide somewhere Kariya can’t look.

If Byakuya’s broken the rules, does that mean Kariya is breaking the rules too to find him and punish him for it?

Grandfather might even be proud of him for trying.

Kariya slides the door open. The tatami room smells like no one’s cleaned it in years, which is strange, because it _looks_ so pretty with the lights filtering in through the paper walls. There aren’t places to hide, not really, since it’s so open in here and Grandfather’s desk is so low and small, and there really isn’t any other furniture, any other place for Byakuya to hide.

\--except maybe under the tatami! So that’s where Kariya looks, carefully picks up a corner and peeks under and scrunches up his nose at the smell and--

“Kariya,” a bug familiar says, its mandibles clacking with Grandfather’s voice, “don’t you remember the rules?”

 

**Nine.**

He’s getting good at soccer. Better than Byakuya was at this age, Mama says. She sometimes comes outside to watch him practice, even though she’s sick. She sits in the shade of the awning by the back door and claps every time Kariya makes a goal, or juggles more than five times in a row.

“Look!” Kariya says as quickly as he can before he has to head the ball again, and counts, “six! Seven! Eight! Ni--” No, he misses nine. But it’s still more than five, and better than he did before, and Mama is smiling.

“That’s wonderful, Kariya.” She smiles, and Mama doesn’t smile a lot, so Kariya will definitely try to make her smile more.

He sets up the ball again to do a high kick, over the house. “Watch this too!”

“I’m watching!”

So he’ll make this perfect, and punt as hard as he can--

\--and there goes the ball right through the cellar window.

Something screeches. It’s a sound like a pot of tea boiling over, hissing on the stove. But Kariya’s too busy apologizing and Mama is too busy rushing him inside for him to wonder what’s making that sound in the first place.

The next day, the cellar is boarded up with wood and mesh and magical wards. Kariya doesn’t get a new soccer ball until next New Years, and has to make do with a volleyball instead. It doesn’t kick the same, but it’s better than being in trouble. The punishment for an accident is much better than a real one.

 

**Eleven.**

“You’re gonna get in trouble,” Kariya says.

Byakuya says “Stuff it, goose-face,” but the girl Byakuya was wrestling with (at least, it looked more like wrestling than the kissing people do on TV, even if she and Byakuya were also kissing) shrieks and tries to run away.

And after that, everyone starts yelling: Kariya yells at Byakuya that he’s in trouble, Byakuya yells at everyone to shut up, and someone yells from down the hall, and the girl is just screaming and crying and Kariya would feel bad but it’s Byakuya’s fault for not obeying the rules.

“Well, well,” Grandfather says, and his voice cuts through the room even though everyone else is shouting. And when Grandfather speaks, Grandfather knows everything, so there’s no point in saying anything else. Kariya doesn’t Byakuya doesn’t.

But the girl keeps crying.

“What have we here?” Grandfather asks. He isn’t looking at Kariya, so Kariya knows he shouldn’t speak, but there’s a girl, and she’s crying, and Kariya doesn’t want to be blamed for that.

“Byakuya brought her here,” Kariya says.

“You’re gonna pay for that, you little snitch!”

“He did!” Kariya stamps his foot and raises his fist. He can use magic better than Byakuya and he _will_ if he has to. “Grandfather, it’s not her fault and it’s not mine. Byakuya broke the rules.”

“Aha,” Grandfather says, and looks at the girl. Her shirt is unbuttoned and her underwear is showing. It’s purple, printed with flowers. “You didn’t know you’re not supposed to be here, hm?”

“Please, Mr. Matou, I didn’t know!” Her knees hit the floor and she pulls her shirt around her shoulders. “Byakuya said--”

“Byakuya says a lot of things,” Grandfather says, tapping his cane on the floorboards. Something creaks, and something smells, a little more than just Grandfather and his bones. “Did he tell you to keep quiet so you wouldn’t get caught?”

The girl whimpers, and nods. Byakuya says something filthy under his breath, and Kariya wants to kick him, but he won’t have to. Grandfather will deal with this. Grandfather knows best.

“Kariya, go to your room. You won’t be punished for this.” Grandfather raps his cane on the floor, so Kariya says _thank you_ and lowers his head, but Grandfather goes on after that. “Tell me, Byakuya. What have you done with this girl? Have you been with her?”

Byakuya’s about to answer, but the girl shouts “No!” It echoes. Something skitters in the corner, and Kariya turns to look at it, and when he looks back Grandfather is smiling.

“Good,” Grandfather says. “I wouldn’t want my idiot grandson to deprive you of your innocence. Come downstairs with me, both of you. We’ll sort this out, won’t we? Kariya, go back to your room. I should not have to tell you twice.”

Kariya does as he’s told. But he stays in the doorway long enough to watch Byakuya help Grandfather down the stairs, and the girl keep apologizing as she clutches the banister and tries not to trip. She looks back at Kariya, catches his eyes as if to say _save me_.

But Kariya goes to his room, like he should. And Byakuya doesn’t bring any more girls home after that.

 

**Thirteen.**

“No,” Grandfather says. “Force your will onto theirs. They have tiny insect brains. You do not. Use yours.”

So Kariya concentrates. The enormous cicadas twitch like a film reeling sideways, and Kariya reaches out his mind toward theirs, tells them to fly. _Fly._ And some of them do: two at first, then four more, then a dozen, hovering a few inches above the terrarium. Their little legs dangle like strings, and their antennae don’t waver, but their wings flap as fast as they should.

“Good,” Grandfather says, and reaches out to pinch one to death. Its little brain is crushed, and fluid leaks between Grandfather’s fingers. And that’s all Kariya sees before his depth perception goes--along with his left eye.

The cicadas drop back into the terrarium, scuttle for the corners now that their minds are their own again.

Grandfather tsks. “No. Their pain isn’t yours. Their death isn’t yours. Again.”

So. Again. If Grandfather tells you again, you do it again, and Kariya does it again. His eyesight comes back, a little blurrier than before. He raises his head and his hand. A dozen cicadas fly. One dies. Kariya cuts it off a second before, endures the headache, doesn’t permit his vision to sear. Tears well up, but he can still see.

“Better,” Grandfather says, and pinches another bug. “Concentrate.”

Again. Endure. There’s pain but he can’t let it blind him. _Won’t_ , Kariya corrects, _won’t_ let it blind him. He could. He won’t.

He makes it four more bugs before a spike of pain shoots through the back of his head, and everything drops. But he isn’t blind.

Grandfather’s voice only rings on the left side, though. “Good,” he says. “Again.”

There are at least two dozen more cicadas in the terrarium, maybe three. They’re all flapping, piling their bodies in the corner like it would help them get free.

“How are there cicadas, anyway?” Kariya asks, and it’s still strange to only half-hear his own voice, even if this isn’t the first time he’s been deafened during training. “It’s winter.”

But all Grandfather does is shake the crushed exoskeleton off his fingers, and repeat, “Again.”

 

**Fifteen.**

Aoi is not an ordinary girl. She’s never been one. Knowing that usually makes it easier and harder at the same time: easier to think that it’s okay to want her and love her as much as he does, harder to be normal about it.

So it’s only a little weird to ask her on a date. And only a little weird to take her out to a mall on the other side of the Mion, and to lunch, and to a romantic comedy that Kariya probably wouldn’t have wanted to see without a girlfriend.

Thinking of Aoi as his girlfriend--his _fiancée_ \--nearly makes Kariya’s heart pound out of his chest.

They take the bus home, and sit in the backseat, and she puts her head on his shoulder for five whole minutes after they cross the bridge, and that isn’t weird at all, that’s _wonderful._ He almost wants to miss their stop and go too far, even if it means getting home too late, because he doesn’t want to wake her up. But the driver flashes the lights, like he knows where he’s supposed to leave the two freshmen cuddling in the backseat, and Aoi is all apologies as they gather up their shopping bags and make their way out.

He asks her, “Can I walk you home?” and she says “Yes.”

Her family lives in the penthouse of an apartment building next to the Hyatt, so it’s not far at all, and Kariya wishes the walk were longer. They talk about homework they haven’t done yet, and he carries the shopping bags, and walks her into the building, into the elevator, down the hall to her door.

“Well,” she says, “this was--I had a good time, Kariya.”

“So did I,” he says. He hopes his voice doesn’t crack. “Are you okay with our families’ arrangement? “

She nods, and makes it look like the easiest thing in the world. “I always knew my marriage would be arranged,” she says.

He waits to hear _I’m glad it’s you,_ but can’t wait too long. He kneels to put the shopping bags down, and reaches up to touch her hair (and hopes he’ll be taller than her soon), and asks, more out of breath than he should be, “May I?”

Instead of yes, she asks “May you what?”, but his lips drift toward hers and she doesn’t pull away.

It’s his first kiss--and he thinks it’s hers too--and it’s over far too soon. Her lips are soft and glossy and open just right and they both blush when he pulls away.

“I should go inside,” she says, and fumbles in her purse for the key.

“Right.” He kneels again to gather up the bags, and to be honest gets a little dizzy on the way up. He kissed her. She kissed back. They’re going to be married. There is no pain or sadness or strife in the entire world.

“Will you be okay getting home?” she asks, with her key in the door.

Well, maybe there is pain, but it isn’t _here_ , isn’t _now_.

 

**Sixteen.**

Everyone is surprised that Mama held on this long. Kariya wonders if this priest really speaks for everyone, because Kariya isn’t surprised. Mama may have been sick, but she was strong. Kariya thinks she could have held on longer.

A Matou endures. Mama could have, should have, endured more.

They burn her body privately and quickly, and Grandfather is given the urn.

Kariya doesn’t know where it’s to be kept, and the one time he asks, he’s told he’s not allowed to know.

 

**Seventeen.**

“Congratulations,” Grandfather says.

Kariya is still in his graduation clothes, and only takes off his shoes at the door. “Thank you,” he says, and bows. “I would have liked you to be there, but I understand.”

“Don’t think I haven’t planned to celebrate.” Grandfather smiles, and raps his cane on the floor. “Come with me.”

So Kariya puts his bag down, hikes up his hakama, and follows Grandfather to the cellar door.

The basement is the single most forbidden place in the house. But the rules about doing as Grandfather tells you are higher on the list than the ones about not going where you don’t belong. Grandfather unlocks the door: the reek is almost unbearable, and Kariya covers his mouth with his sleeve. Grandfather, apparently, finds this funny.

“Endure,” he says, and Kariya obeys.

Breathing gets no easier. Nor does finding the steps in the dark. But Kariya follows, and goes where he’s told, and Grandfather’s voice is as easy as ever to follow.

“You understand that you are the strongest magus remaining in our family,” Grandfather says. “You should also know by now that that carries with it certain responsibilities. Byakuya will not be able to succeed the Matou legacy to my satisfaction. It is time you learned just what that entails.”

Kariya nods. He’d suspected as much, since his engagement to Aoi and her family, and since Byakuya’s son hasn’t started training. “I thought you’d live forever, Grandfather.”

“We shall see,” Grandfather laughs, a deep, almost hissing sound that echoes against the cellar walls. It swells, drowns out Kariya’s footsteps.

There is no rail on the stairs. It’s a straight drop into a stone pit.

And the floor is moving. Writhing, like sludge or lava or a liquid blister.

“These are the family crest,” Grandfather says, “and you just inherited it.”

Kariya bites back vomit.

Grandfather doesn’t seem to notice. “There is a war I intend to win. In ten years, you will fight it. You’re the strongest remaining Matou. Unless one of your children with the Zenjou girl surpasses you, I expect you to serve. These crest worms will be your strength. We’ll start training you with them now, before the wedding.”

Grandfather knows best. Grandfather knows everything. Nothing is scarier than Grandfather when you disobey him.

Kariya opens his mouth to say _No_ , and only bile comes out. The worms in the pit beneath him screech and surge around the splatter, like it’s a handful of rice or breadcrumbs in a pond.

***

He can’t go to Aoi’s apartment. Her family will tell Grandfather. He can’t knock on the front door, because they’ll answer. He can’t throw stones at her window because her window is thirty stories off the ground and he doesn’t even know which window is hers, let alone if she’s home, let alone if she’ll hear him or care--

He hasn’t changed out of his graduation clothes. He hasn’t packed anything else. But he has to leave, and has to leave _now_ , and she has to know.

There’s a large moth hanging about near the streetlights. It sickens him to do but Kariya concentrates, calls it to him, transfers his mind into it and sends it up to the penthouse.

Through the moth’s eyes, he sees first the master bedroom, then Aoi’s room next to it. He’s never been inside. He can’t see the colors through the insect and wants to, so much--and there’s Aoi in her pyjamas, curled up in a papasan chair and talking on the phone. Kariya almost loses his hold on the moth--she’s so cute, and he needs her so much right now, but this is the only way he can get to her.

He has the moth knock on the window. It gets Aoi’s attention, but only enough to shoo it away.

Her name is only one kanji. He has the moth carve it on the window, one leg at a time.

_That_ gets her attention. She hangs up the phone, comes to the window, mouths his name. He wishes he could really hear her, but the moth’s perception isn’t good enough.

But he can speak through it, and does, once Aoi opens the window to let the moth in. It can barely fly and most of its legs are missing, but Kariya endures.

“I’m so sorry, Aoi,” he says, and the carries the sound to her, or at least he hopes it does. “I have to leave Fuyuki. Come with me.”

She answers, but he can only read her lips. _Wait,_ she says.

“I can’t tonight. But I’ll wait for you in Tokyo. I promise. Come find me, all right? I love--”

The moth dies. Kariya can’t force it to hold on.

***

**Eighteen.**

She never comes. Well, she hasn’t come yet. Kariya won’t give up hoping.

Even if her family has rules just like his, she could break them if she really wanted to.


End file.
